2 big Manta rays in Westpoint, Curacao!!!

[Diver OnLu]

Hi there,

Just 2 hours ago a group of Brazilian divers met 2 huge manta rays when diving Alice in Wonderland right in front of Ocean Encounters West dive shop.

A bit later, the two giants (the bigger one with a wing span of approximately 15ft, the other one only slightly smaller!) had travelled over to Playa Piscado in front of All West Apartments. One got caught briefly in the moring line of a fisherman's boat, with the result that the line got ripped off the anchor block and the fisherman's boat went sailing towards the open sea on its own. OEW manager Bryan towed it back with our dive boat.

In the meantime, the mantas kept swimming around in shallow water, clearly visible from the balconies of All West Apartments. It looked spectacular, with their wingtips cutting the surface every now and then! While I watched the rays from above, a guest family went down to snorkel with them - the giants passed right underneath them, so you could get a good estimate of their size. I am pretty sure that tonight at Sol Food we'll have a lot to discuss over a couple of beers (and pizza, and brownies), and the rays will grow even bigger in our stories

For a guest video see YouTube - Manta Rays at Allwest Appartments Curacao.

Greetings from sunny "Manta" Curacao
Andreas

 

[Curacao Sunshine]

OK, sometimes I like to show off a little and if we have lunch guests I keep an eye on the bay in search of visiting dolphins. Today, I noticed something a little strange. They weren't dolphins so at first I thought they might be whales waving their flukes at me and then.... one jumped, Manta Ray!!! Our guests wanted to know why we didn't have a zip line to drop down to the sea. We watched for a while but didn't run down to snorkel. The rays were as close as 10 or 12 feet from shore. At least I saw them from the deck.

 

[UnderwaterBumbleBee]

That's awesome! Think they like turkey? I just got to see some crazy full mooners today and we did have a really loud and really low military jet circle over our house 3 times before landing to re-fuel. Not as exciting as your day!

 

[deeper thoughts]

fantastic!

 

[morecowbells]

How amazing that experience must have been! I'm sure All West looked like a fire station with every one zipping up, grabbing their equipment and hauling their behinds out the door in record time.

 

[Curacao Sunshine]

A you tube video from Andreas's All West guest....
YouTube - Manta Rays at Allwest Appartments Curacao
It doesn't show the family snorkeling over the rays but it does show one of the rays almost sinking a small fishing boat.

 

[irie1029]

That is the coolest.... come on NOVEMBER!!!!!

 

[kmcneer]

we dove this site at 4 yesterday.Sooooo close. We will try again today. May be we'll try down east.

 

[kona74]

That is just too cool. How majestic! Thanks for sharing. Now I just have to be patient - breathe in.... breathe out.

 

[kmcneer]

got some squid yesterday no Manta..this is from Tugboat....this is not a very good dive anymore. There were a buch of kids there with long nets fishing and killing everything that got caught in it.